Creative Home Ideas: Contemporary Furniture

Modern furniture refers to the current trend in furnishings. It comprises the most popular shapes, colors and fabrications, forming great pieces for decorating any modern or eclectic home. Modern could be applied to the development of seating that can be arranged to suit your family’s or guests’ needs as with sectionals or modular seating. The word “Modern” can be applied to the fabrications of consoles, coffee, and end tables as well as bookcases.

There is an abundance of prefabricated materials that makes up these types of furnishings from MDF to metal, plastic, glass and mirrors in modern furniture. Modern furniture of today is often constructed to serve multi-purposes in colors that were once popular that have returned to regain popularity like purple, sky blue and olive green. Modern seating also functions as storage. Ottomans, chaises and many other furnishing styles have built in compartments that can be used as additional storage.

The modern look in seating is reflected in the “armless” look for chairs, sofas and loveseats. This look comes in a slipper chair, chaise or lounge chair. Seating has an extra air of comfort, allowing you to sit in the traditional manner of sit on the side of the chair without hindrances. Parties are non-stop now that there are so many seats to accommodate guests. Not only is the seating style more relaxed, it is made from the most durable materials. With wooden frames they are upholstered in micro-velvets or suedes, bonded or bicast leathers and non-traditional upholstery fabrics like denim or corduroy.

Polyester and polyamides became more popular in upholstery materials. They all owe their current popularity to the success of Ultrasuede in the 1970’s. In the 1990’s microfibers began to make a major impact on the upholstery industry because of their unique properties: it is very difficult to damage or destroy; it’s easy to clean; and it’s soft to the touch. Genuine leather is less and less common and has given way to the less expensive version of bonded or bicast leather. Bonded leather is leather pieces joined with glue and then covered with polyurethane, while bicast leather is simply pieces of leather covered with polyurethane. Both leathers are priced up to 66% less than genuine leather, making them very desirable when compared to the real thing.

The non-traditional fabrics such as denim and corduroy have been used as upholstery materials especially in multi-purpose furnishings like futons, which convert from seating to beds. These materials are often suited for dorm rooms or children’s bedrooms are find their popularity soaring in the fall of each year as students trot off to college and campus living. Sofas transform into queen size and full-size futons, while loveseats and chairs make smaller bed sizes. Futon frames are made of wood, plastic and metal. The metal framed futons tend to be the least expensive and are very popular with college students.

Modern often speaks to the materials an item is made of like plastic retro chairs which are once again considered “modern”. The same concept is true of mirrors which are used to construct tables. They have returned from the Art Deco period in the 1920’s through the 1940’s to capture the eye of the so-called modern furniture buyer of today. In fact glass of any kind is often perceived as “modern”.

Creating a modern look in your home could be as simple as having the current materials used represented in your furnishings. Buy MDF or metal furnishings with glass tops coupled with seating that has multi-purposes like storage or that can be configured in multiple ways. Add accent pieces that represent the armless look in microfibers and bonded leathers and finish the room off with colors that are trendy like purple and olive green.